Mark Deakin

• Dip TP, MPhil, PhD
• Professor (Full) at Edinburgh Napier University

Many in the academic community find claims made about the virtuous nature of smart cities dumbfounding. In that sense left not only bewildered by the claims which academics make about the virtues of smart cities, but the audacious nature of the expectations advocates of them as developments based on the future internet also harbour. In surveying th...

Conceived in the framework of regional studies on Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) development, this special issue strengthens research efforts oriented towards assembling a technology-enhanced approach to S3 policymaking. First, it sheds light on fundamental methodological limitations that affect S3 development and reports on the digital support...

In the past decade there have been a series of articles on the status of Triple, Quadruple and N-Tuple Helices. In responding to the most recent of these from Leydesdorff and Lawson Smith (2022), this article examines the respective status of the Triple and Quadruple Helix as the scientific basis of the Research and Innovation Strategies related to...

This paper closes a gap in the literature on smart cities relating to the metrics of future Internet-based developments. It achieves this by presenting the findings of a case study that overcomes the methodological shortcomings that otherwise exist in the metrics of future Internet-based developments and sets the stage for the renewable energies th...

This Special Issue begins with a middle-range theory of sustainable smart city transitions, which forms bridges between theorizing in smart city development studies and some of the foundational assumptions underpinning transition management and system innovation research, human geography, spatial planning, and critical urban scholarship. This inter...

Background: Patients with Achilles tendon rupture who have non-operative treatment have traditionally been treated with immobilisation of the tendon in plaster casts for several weeks. Functional bracing is an alternative non-operative treatment that allows earlier mobilisation, but evidence on its effectiveness and safety is scarce. The aim of th...

This paper describes current trends in scientific research on Smart Specialisation by answering the following questions: (1) How many scientific publications on Smart Specialisation have been produced since this concept emerged and what are their characteristics in terms of type and influence?; (2) How large is the community of researchers, organis...

Untangling Smart Cities: From Utopian Dreams to Innovation Systems for a Technology-Enabled Urban Sustainability helps all key stakeholders understand the complex and often conflicting nature of smart city research, offering valuable insights for designing and implementing strategies to improve the smart city decision-making processes. The book dri...

This chapter challenges recent mode 2 accounts of smart cities and in particular, the idea they are an index of the future internet. Adopting the triple helix model of knowledge production, it studies smart cities, not as the emergent technologies of economic transactions, but in terms of civil society's support for the integration of Web2.0-based...

This paper reviews Mitchell's thesis on the transition from the city of bits to e-topia. The review finds it wanting and suggests the problems encountered with the thesis rest with the lack of critical insight e-topia offers into the embedded intelligence of smart cities. It also suggests the difficulties, which the thesis experiences in accounting...

This special issue examines the governance of city food systems. It highlights the smart, sustainable and inclusive nature of the governance that underpin city food systems and draws attention to the infra- structural service developments, municipal strategies and capacity- building exercises, which support them. This goes some way to bottom- out t...

Overcoming the dichotomous nature of smart city research is fundamental to provide cities with a clear understanding of how smart city development should be approached. This paper introduces a research methodology for conducting the multiple-case study analyses neces-sary to meet this challenge. After being presented, the practical feasibility, eff...

The white paper on “Intelligence and Co-creation in Smart Specialisation Strategies” outlines some key conclusions from the Online S3 project, funded under the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission. The Online S3 project has produced an online platform composed of software applications and roadmaps that facilitate the design and impleme...

Recent studies reveal a deep-rooted division in research on smart cities, which surfaces as a set of dichotomies that question whether smart city development should be based on a: (1) technology-led or holistic strategy; (2) double or quadruple-helix model of collaboration; (3) top-down or bottom-up approach; (4) mono-dimensional or integrated inte...

Bibliometrics is a powerful tool for analyzing knowledge domains and revealing their cognitive-epistemological structure. Different mathematical models and statistical techniques have been proposed and tested to carry out bibliometric analyses and demonstrate their effectiveness in uncovering how fields of research are intellectually structured. Th...

The Online S3 Platform (http://s3platform.eu/) aims to expand administrative capabilities of regional institutions, and thus, become an essential tool for improving the effectiveness of decision-making processes. The report describes the overall Online S3 platform mechanism, in terms of information flows and application interoperability. Its main r...

This paper reviews Mitchell's thesis on the transition from the city of bits to e-topia. The review finds it wanting and suggests the problems encountered with the thesis rest with the lack of critical insight e-topia offers into the embedded intelligence of smart cities. It also suggests the difficulties, which the thesis experiences in accounting...

Studying the governance of a smart city food system, this paper offers a critical synthesis of the literature on the governance of smart cities and goes on to use the insights it offers as a basis to examine the claim made about the food system emerging from the 2015 World Expo in Milan. In particular, the claim made about the infrastructure develo...

More than 20 years have now passed since the concept of smart city first appeared in a scholarly publication, marking the beginning of a new era in urban innovation. Since then, the literature discussing this new concept and the ICT-oriented urban-innovation approach it stands for has been growing steadily, along with the number of initiatives that...

This paper summarizes the outcomes of a literature review on smart cities and goes on to provide an overview of the critical insights it offers. Bypassing mainstream academic readings of the subject and offering a critique of the Smart City Ranking, future internet development and Triple Helix models, the insights this review offers go beyond the s...

This article suggests the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EPD) that underlies Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) is not so much caught in the transition from the Triple to the Quadruple Helix, as rooted in a division within civil society. In particular, rooted in a division within civil society, over public trust...

Smart Specialisation has generated a paradigmatic change in regional innovation policies and the European Union has shown a strong interest in supporting research that investigates the developments of this new science-related topic. This paper helps to generate the intellectual capital necessary to support the European Union's project of Smart Spec...

This paper summarizes the outcomes of a literature review on smart cities and goes on to provide an overview of the critical insights it offers. Bypassing mainstream academic readings of the subject and offering a critique of the Smart City Ranking, future internet development and Triple Helix models, the insights this review offers go beyond the s...

This paper reviews Mitchell's thesis on the transition from the city of bits to e-topia. The review finds it wanting and suggests the problems encountered with the thesis rest with the lack of critical insight e-topia offers into the embedded intelligence of smart cities. It also suggests the difficulties, which the thesis experiences in accounting...

As part of the dissemination and stakeholder engagement processes, the Online S3 consortium attended the 2017 Annual Conference of the Regional Studies Association (RSA). The main aim of the conference was to explore all aspects of local and regional development and how it relates to inequalities across different territories. With more than 600 par...

Online S3 News - 31st May 2017

Online S3 News - 26th May 2017

This paper reports on the first two decades of research on smart cities by conducting a bibliometric analysis of the literature published between 1992 and 2012. The analysis shows that smart-city research is fragmented and lacks cohesion, and its growth follows two main development paths. The first one is based on the peer-reviewed publications pro...

Smart specialisation can be considered an entrepreneurial discovery process which makes it possible to identify where regions can benefit from specialising in specific areas of science and technology. The European Commission suggests the development of research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3) should concentrate resources o...

This paper reviews the literature on smart cities. Offering a critical synthesis of the material, it advances a Triple Helix inspired account of smart cities as future internet-based developments. In particular, as future internet-based developments covering the digital infrastructures, data management systems, renewable energies and cloud computin...

Mitchell's book on the City of Bits, sets out a vision of urban life literally done to bits. His next book e-topia, provides the counter-point to this vision of urban life and scenario where the city is no longer left in bits and pieces, but a place where it ‘all comes together'. As Mitchell states in Me++: the Cyborg Self and the Networked City, a...

This book explores the governance of city food systems. It serves to highlight, not only the smart, sustainable and inclusive nature of the urban and regional governance, which underpins the growth of infrastructure development, but that also support the solution corridor opening up for city food systems to bridge territorial divisions in the acces...

This paper provides an assessment of the value of national population censuses as information sources with specific reference to UK census data and its use in policy-making. Mixed methods were adopted to collect quantitative and qualitative data from two sources: (a) a content analysis of policy documents; and (b) interviews with policy-makers in S...

This chapter challenges recent mode 2 accounts of smart cities and in particular, the idea they are an index of the future internet. Adopting the triple helix model of knowledge production, it studies smart cities, not as the emergent technologies of economic transactions, but in terms of civil society's support for the integration of Web2.0-based...

Reflecting on the governance of smart cities, the state-of-the-art this paper advances offers a critique of recent city ranking and future Internet accounts of their development. Armed with these critical insights, it goes on to explain smart cities in terms of the social networks, cultural attributes and environmental capacities, vis-a-vis, vital...

Many studies have demonstrated the adverse effect of the built environments on health and differentiated between their direct and indirect impacts. In the case of diabetes and other chronic diseases, such studies concentrate on the direct impact of built environments on the living conditions of citizens either at home or in the neighbourhood. In th...

This report aims at analyzing the state of today's knowledge and tools that is relevant for moving European cities towards climate neutrality. The report has been created using both literature sources as well as analyses of case studies from European cites. The main issues dealt with are how the concept of climate neutrality applies to cities, what...

Recent studies of urban morphology suggest the design, layout and texture of district centres, neighbourhoods and buildings have as much a bearing on levels of energy consumption and rates of carbon emission as either buildings or their occupation. This paper aims to reiterate this message and demonstrate how urban morphology does matter. Not only...

The drive to establish Manchester as a forerunner in the digital economy means the city is now considered the “powerhouse” of the North of England, with salaries for city workers at the highest in the UK outside of London. Despite this, Manchester remains home to some of the most socially and economically deprived communities in the UK: just as tho...

The need to protect the environment from the wanton ecological destruction of unfettered economic growth and conspicuous consumption is unquestionable. What is still in question, however, is how environmental assessment methods can be used as a means to evaluate the sustainability of urban development. For while the number of environmental assessme...

Purpose – Diabetes mellitus is the most common non-communicable medical condition worldwide, yet little is known about the relationship this disease has to the built environment. The purpose of this paper is to throw some much needed light on the matter by shifting attention away from the epidemiology of the medical condition and towards the anthro...

Recent studies of urban morphology, suggest the design, layout and texture of district centres, neighbourhoods and buildings have as much a bearing on levels of energy consumption and rates of carbon emission as either buildings or their occupation. They suggest urban morphology matters and both the design, layout and texture of district centres, n...

The Gulf area witnesses a huge boom in construction. The total value of construction projects planned or underway in the six Gulf Cooperation Council states – the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman – was about $1.9 trillion in 2011. Gulf countries have unique characteristics and these affect the systems, operations...

Purpose – Diabetes mellitus is the most common non-communicable medical condition worldwide, yet little is known about the relationship this disease has to the built environment. The purpose of this paper is to throw some much needed light on the matter by shifting attention away from the epidemiology of the medical condition and towards the anthro...

A sustainable city is one which develops in a manner which meets the needs of the future without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Increasingly cities are seeking to become ‘smarter’ in how they are managed and developed in order to become more sustainable. A smart and sustainable city invests in human and soci...

A discussion covers a case-study involving an attempt to reduce energy consumption and the associated levels of CO2 emissions via an "an active and integrated institutional arrangement"; a mass retrofit proposal that is active and integrated through an urban regeneration strategy; program of renewal and redevelopment scheme capable of transforming...

This paper draws upon the findings of a paper on ‘learning from what works in sustainable community development’, already published by the author in this journal. In reflecting on the lessons learnt, it studies the case for socially inclusive visioning and illustrates how such a technique of analysis can be used by communities as a basis for master...

This paper develops the notion of the intelligent city as the smart provider of electronically enhanced services. It identifies how this growing interest in intelligent cities has led universities to exploe the opportunities “communities of practice” (CoPs) offer industry to become smart providers of online services. With this aim, it reports on th...

This paper examines a recent attempt to reduce energy consumption and the associated levels of carbon emissions by way of and through what has been termed: “an active and integrated institutional arrangementâ€. That is, by the integration of a mass retrofit proposal into an urban regeneration strategy, with the vision, master-plan, programme of r...

This chapter draws attention to the triple-helix model of knowledge production and the Web-services assembled to support the development of the SmartCities (inter) Regional Academic Network as a community of practice for standardising the transformation of eGovernment services. It draws particular attention to the University-Industry-Government col...

The chapter demonstrates that the inclusion of the abovementioned relations in the analytical hierarchy framework is significant, as it allows, for the first time, the opportunity for this network model to capture the triple helix of a smart urban or regional development and to verify whether the transformation of cities it ushers in is not merely...

Focusing on a subset of European cities belonging to the SmartCities (inter) Regional Academic Network (SCRAN), i.e. Bremerhaven, Edinburgh, Groningen, Karlstad, Kortijk, Kristiansand, Lillesand, Osterholz, Norfolk, this chapter will offer a decision network model built around an analytical hierarchy able to verify whether the development of cities...

This chapter develops the notion of the intelligent city as the smart provider of electronically-enhanced services. Set within the ongoing debate about competitive cities, it identifies how the growing interest in the notion of intelligent cities has led universities to explore the possibilities of using ‘communities of practice’ (CoPs) as a way of...

The chapter demonstrates that the inclusion of the abovementioned relations in the analytical hierarchy framework is significant, as it allows, for the first time, the opportunity for this network model to capture the triple helix of a smart urban or regional development and to verify whether the transformation of cities it ushers in is not merely...

This chapter develops the notion of the intelligent city as the smart provider of electronically-enhanced services. Set within the ongoing debate about competitive cities, it identifies how the growing interest in the notion of intelligent cities has led universities to explore the possibilities of using ‘communities of practice’ (CoPs) as a way of...

The following reports on the research carried out to meet the challenge of learning from what works in the development of sustainable communities and ‘close the gap’ in what Egan (2004) calls the generic skills of socially-inclusive visioning. Those inclusive-visioning skills referred to as being of ‘first order’ priority for the reason they are se...

Taking Hollands' previous statement on the transition from intelligent to smart cities as its point of departure (‘Will the real smart city stand up?’ City 12(3), 302–320), this article reflects upon the anxieties currently surrounding such developments. In particular, it considers the suggestion that such developments have more to do with cities m...